“Let’s be calm about this business, Colonel,” he said.  “We won’t say anything about the past.  But I ain’t set on having you shot.  There’s a consideration that would stop me, and I cal’late you know what it is.”

Then the Colonel made a motion.  But before he had taken a step Virginia had crossed the room swiftly, and flung herself upon him.

“Oh, don’t, Pa!” she cried.  “Don’t!  Tell him that I will agree to it.  Yes, I will.  I can’t have you—­shot.”  The last word came falteringly, faintly.

“Let me go,—­honey,” whispered the Colonel, gently.  His eyes did not leave Eliphalet.  He tried to disengage himself, but her fingers were clasped about his neck in a passion of fear and love.  And then, while she clung to him, her head was raised to listen.  The sound of Stephen Brice’s voice held her as in a spell.  His words were coming coldly, deliberately, and yet so sharply that each seemed to fall like a lash.

“Mr. Hopper, if ever I hear of your repeating what you have seen or heard in this room, I will make this city and this state too hot for you to live in.  I know you.  I know how you hide in areas, how you talk sedition in private, how you have made money out of other men’s misery.  And, what is more, I can prove that you have had traitorous dealings with the Confederacy.  General Sherman has been good enough to call himself a friend of mine, and if he prosecutes you for your dealings in Memphis, you will get a term in a Government prison, You ought to be hung.  Colonel Carvel has shown you the door.  Now go.”

And Mr, Hopper went.

CHAPTER XIII

FROM THE LETTERS OF MAJOR STEPHEN BRICE

Of the Staff of General Sherman on the March to the Sea, and on the March from Savannah Northward.

Headquarters military division of the Mississippi Goldsboro, N.C.  March 24, 1865

Dear mother:  The South Carolina Campaign is a thing of the past.  I pause as I write these words—­they seem so incredible to me.  We have marched the four hundred and twenty-five miles in fifty days, and the General himself has said that it is the longest and most important march ever made by an organized army in a civilized country.  I know that you will not be misled by the words “civilized country.”  Not until the history of this campaign is written will the public realize the wide rivers and all but impassable swamps we have crossed with our baggage trains and artillery.  The roads (by courtesy so called) were a sea of molasses and every mile of them has had to be corduroyed.  For fear of worrying you I did not write you from Savannah how they laughed at us for starting at that season of the year.  They said we would not go ten miles, and I most solemnly believe that no one but “Uncle Billy” and an army organized and equipped by him could have gone ten miles.  Nothing seems to stop him.  You have probably remarked in the tone of my letters ever since we left Kingston for the sea, a growing admiration for “my General.”